


The reset button

by Dummy_Writer



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, M/M, Multi, Only in body really, Time Travel, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 20:16:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4933816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dummy_Writer/pseuds/Dummy_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the newest evil supervillain—And really, why were all these guys taking their cues from comic books and ignoring the fact that the bad guy always loses in them?—stood there talking about time travel, Eggsy thought it meant showing up at some moment in the past and maybe killing Valentine before the bullet plowed through Harry’s brain, he thought of throwing himself on the grenade so his Da didn’t have to. He thought of alternate universes and time loops and paradoxes, not looking up to see the teddy bear mobile hanging over his head and a pacifier in his mouth.<br/>Or<br/>The one in which Eggsy relives his life and kicks ass. Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually write dude on dude stuff, mainly because I'm not a dude and so I feel like the voice doesn't quite feel right. This would be my first time writing something like this and I'm not too confident with it so any advice would be helpful.

He was in jail.

Eggsy opened his eyes and found himself lying on his side and quite unable to move. The only thing he could see was the bars of his prison and even then it took some time to focus on them properly.

Still, as far as jails went it wasn’t too bad. He wasn’t quite feeling up to moving so he just looked around for a bit. His strength would return to him, he just needed to scope out the place first.

It seemed like a flimsy jail, wooden bars. They were thick and oddly flat but Eggsy could work with them, he’d been in worse. It took some effort and a few hefty breaths before he could move his head a bit to look up.

That’s when things went to shit.

At first all he noticed was that the prison had high walls but they ended. He was in what appeared to be a high ceilinged room and the bars didn’t reach it at all. And then he saw that there was a chandelier like thing hanging off the ceiling with strange knitted toys hanging off it. Strange decor.

And then he realised he wasn’t in jail, he was in a giant crib. Now the panic set in and Eggsy began thrashing, trying to get his limbs to move and opened his mouth to yell only for a high-pitched wail to come out instead.

What the fuck was going on?

It was just as he started to rock himself from side to side to get onto his hands and knees to crawl out that that a shadow bloomed over him and he looked up to find his mother had been turned into a giant, a giant that was now picking him up, making cooing noises at him and then tucking him into her shoulder, his head nestled against her collarbone.

 And then things slowly started to fall in place. The scientist obsessed with time travel, ranting on and on about getting his childhood back from the bastards who’d stolen him from his home and forced him to build weapons for them in exchange for his mother’s safety. As far as traumatic childhood incidents went it was right up there and any other time Eggsy would have been sympathetic to his plight. Unfortunately he’d stolen ten kilograms of plutonium to power his device and Merlin said that the side effects to the time travel machine working was that the entirety of London and all its boroughs would become a radioactive hotspot that made Chernobyl look like an organic farm.

If he tried to stop it from happening he would never be sent back in time to stop it from happening, creating a time loop.

But the other option was just letting it all happen and countless people winding up dead due to radioactive exposure.

Fuckity fucking fuck.

Ah well, Eggsy thought as he rocked off to sleep in his mother’s arms. At least he had years and years to figure out what to do. It was only 1990 after all, his Da was even alive and his mum was happy and it would be six years until Harry made Lee Umwin his candidate.

And then Eggsy’s eyes flew wide open and his face scrunched up as a wail left him once again.

Harry fucking Hart was still alive.

* * *

 

 

Being a baby was fucking rank. The breastfeeding alone made him wish Kingsman’s Psych department was there to help him through this difficult time and then there was the rest of it. Sitting there stewing in his own filth until someone changed his diaper, being unable to articulate anything at all, he couldn’t even hold up his own head and his legs and hands were pathetically weak.

Then came the realisation that he would have to go through puberty again and he began crying late at night waking up the entire household but for some reason his Da just stood there right next his Mum who was holding him and looked almost pathetically relieved.

“I thought we’d have to take him to the doctor.” His Da said and stroked his back gently.

“Aww, there’s nothing wrong with my darlin’ Eggsy, he’s just a bit quiet, aren’t you luv?” His mum cooed and Eggsy realised he had been scaring them. A baby might keep parent sup at night, sleep irregularly and cry to be held but _he_ didn’t. He was a thirty year old man despite his spanking new body and he was just really bad at being a baby. For all the Kingsman training he had at blending in and going undercover, he had never learnt how to be undercover as a child after all so after a steep learning curve consisting mainly of what he remembered of Daisy and what he read in the baby books his mother read diligently, he found himself a neat little routine.

He cried, he ate, he burped, he slept, he shat his pants and he cried again, he sat through the indignity of having his diaper changed and then repeated the process all over again.

It was a dull life but one he’d have to live until he regained some fucking control over his limbs. It left him a lot of time to think and think he did.

Like how exactly this happened. The scientist wanted to relive his childhood but Eggsy didn’t think he wanted to relive it with all the terrible memories of his life. And how was it even possible for Eggsy to maintain his memories in the first place? Sending memories back in time didn’t make sense, it wasn’t like his three month old brain was even capable of storing memories like that. Or was it? Eggsy didn’t exactly have a degree in this shit.

Maybe that’s what he would do. He had the time, he could study quantum physics this time round and figure out how this happened.

He had to figure what happened.

* * *

 

Eggsy’s first birthday— or the thirty-first birthday as he thought of it—was like a fucking parade with him as the main float. Aunts arrived with sticky fingers that kept on holding onto his cheek a bit too hard, a few cousins who’d never seen a baby before poked and prodded a bit too much and he felt blinded by the flash because his mum kept on taking pictures.

It made him remember Daisy’s first birthday, just a month after V-Day. They had a big picnic with Roxie and Jamal and Ryan all there, some of the new friends his Mum had made at the knitting club she’d joined and even Merlin had made an appearance. She had a big vanilla cake thick with frosting and sugar daisies—daisies for a Daisy—all over it.

Fuck but he missed his Daisy Darling.

* * *

 

Eggsy wanted to speak. When his mum cooed to him to say Mama he tried, he tried _so_ hard. He tried saying Da but his tongue wouldn’t work the way he wanted it to, it wriggled and moved only to eat and he was frustrated but never gave up, he tried and tried to talk.

His first word came on the heels of a nightmare, a memory really. He saw a man in Kentucky, a gun held out to face him even as the shooter didn’t and he woke just as the sound of a bullet plowing through his mentor resounded in his ears and in his crib he sat up crying.

For the life of them his parents just couldn’t figure out why his first word was ‘Hawwy’.


	2. Chapter 2

When he turned one and a half years old and his mum threw another party, Eggsy realised that he had never actually seen her happy, not like this. There was no tinge of sadness to her smiles, they were bright and sunny and so very like Daisy’s half-toothed grin and she was fearless, nothing stopped her from showing off how happy she was. No matter what, she laughed loud and full, even when people gave her a look she all but danced on the roads with him, waltzing under the yellow glow of a streetlight.

He knew that she’d taken his Da’s death hard but he hadn’t realised that she had actually _died with him_. He felt guilty for not realising that. When Harry died he had felt his world crash around him and he didn’t even _have_ Harry, hell they’d only spent together what amounted up to three or four days. His mum had to go from years of the man she loved to nothing at all.

He should have seen it.

Eggsy wanted to change things, he wanted his Mum to never go through what Dean had put her through, he never wanted her to smile through tears because it fucking hurt to move her face, he wanted better for her. And he wanted better for the man he was coming to know as his Da, wanted better for Lee Unwin than dying on a grenade in the middle of nowhere.

But how could he?

* * *

 

He turns two and is in parts annoyed and surprisedly happy. There are a lot more people in his life than he expects, his Da’s friends all come to visit and sit him on their shoulders, teasing his Da about his height that Eggsy had probably never seen from such a height before and his Mum’s friends came by too trying to get him to say their names.

The annoyance mainly stems from the inactivity. He knows that he can’t do much but wait, wait for his legs to be able to hold his weight for longer, waits for his fingers to move more deftly, wait until he’s ‘old enough to read’ and wait for Harry Hart to enter his life.

But it is boring and dull and the cartoons he watches aren’t that interesting and his books are just pictures with a few words at the side. He even tried sneaking into his Da’s stash of books and maybe hiding it away so he’d have something to read that didn’t rhyme but it didn’t work and all he got was a Mills and Boons book—which was his Da’s he realised when his Da asked Mum if she’d seen his book and she teased him for reading trashy romances—and read it cover from cover.

No, life at the age of thirty-two in the body of a two year old was not fun.

But it would get better, he was sure. A few months later, he’d be starting Nursery school.

* * *

 

He was wrong, it did not get better.

Eggsy loved Daisy and he loved playing tea party with her and all her friends. He was good with children, really, he made all the funny voices when reading and he drew unicorns for Daisy to colour.

But as he sat there in the middle of utter chaos and crying while half the children all around him were in varying states of distress at leaving their parents for the first time and the rest used the desks and tables as jungle gyms, he was not impressed. The teacher looked close to tears, absolutely exhausted and spent most of her time simply corralling them all to their seats.

She wasn’t doing so well at it.

So Eggsy helped her out. He challenged the boys climbing on desks to sitting still for a minute and stuck his tongue out at them to goad them on, he gave the crying twins each an animal cookie that his mum packed for him and finally found himself a little window of silence.

“I’m Eggsy, I’m thwee years old.”He loudly proclaimed to the class cringing at his inability to say ‘r’.

Finally, the teacher took that as her cue.

“Okay everyone, let’s follow Eggsy’s example and introduce ourselves shall we?” She smiled but it was a wavering smile. “For example, I’m Ms Braverman and I’m new here, just like you. Can you all say hello to me?”

“Hello Ms Braverman.” The class chorused and giggled when one of the girls added a ‘sir’ at the end of her sentence. Ms Braverman’s eye twitched but she stayed calm.

“So, it seems we’re all new here aren’t we? So let’s all help each other out, okay?”

“Yes Ms Braverman.”

“Now, Eggsy you introduced yourself, how about you tell us one thing you like and one thing you dislike?”

Eggsy thought it over quickly. His real likes were explosions, suits, lighter grenades and shoes with wings on them but the first three weren’t something to be shared and the fourth didn’t quite exist yet.

“I like books.” He finally said, hoping that it meant he would get some ones with more words in them from Ms Braverman. “And I hate-” Charlie Hesketh, Megalomaniacs, drug lords, time travel. “People who are mean to animals.”

Ms Braverman smiles tiredly at him but moves on to the rest of the class.

Time passes a little bit faster after that. They share a library with a primary school and even though the sections are separated, he sneaks himself in and _reads_ because there is little else to do. He’s always been smart but never exactly motivated and because of his gymnastics he hadn’t focused on studying. He did so now, reading about the laws of physics and chemistry, stuff he already knew but that he could learn a bit more. If he had a better foundation with these things he’d be able to understand time travel better, or so he assumed.

Slow and steady, he learnt, preparing for the time when he could understand what had happened to him and how he could fix things. As he grew older he grew tense, knowing full well that the time when Harry would choose his Da’ as a candidate was drawing closer. He waited and bided his time until he could do something until suddenly things changed and they changed everything.

* * *

 

It happens like this, Eggsy’s on the very top of the monkey bars. None of his ‘peers’ can reach that high and it is his sanctuary of sorts, the place where he goes to when the noise that the others were making became too much to handle, which happened with alarming frequency. From his place on the monkey bars he could see quite a bit, he could see into the first floor window where teachers gathered in that little bit of free time and had their teas and biscuits, he could see into an empty classroom where—oh ho, Ms Braverman and the librarian are making out heavily and he can see the parking lot where—

Where a kid is getting pushed into a van by two men with tears streaming down his face.

Eggsy jumps off the monkey bars and runs to the staff room telling them what he just saw, telling them the car’s license plate number as well as the direction in which it headed and it takes a mere few minutes for the call to be made and the police to catch up with the van and rescue the kid.

And Eggsy, Eggsy’s hailed as some sort of hero and when the kid is escorted back to the school they insist that he know who saves him. He’s a little older than Eggsy, six years old probably and he’s shy. He blinks a lot and Eggsy’s sure it isn’t just because he was crying and with the glasses and how fluffy his hair is the kid looks like a little baby owl.

“You were the one who told them t-to save me?”

Eggsy nods and sticks out his hand. “I’m Eggsy.”

The boy takes it and his palm is sticky from wiping tears and snot off his face but Eggsy doesn’t mind.

“I-I’m Eliot.”

Eggsy blinks, hoping that he didn’t mean the Eliot he was thinking of. “Eliot-?”

“Eliot Bradshaw.” The boy says confused.

And then Eggsy freezes. Eliot Bradshaw was the crazy man who sent him back in time like this. He was the one with the childhood trauma that led to creating that machine, a trauma that Eggsy had effectively prevented from happening. He had changed the future with this one kind act.

What the fuck was going to happen now?


	3. Chapter 3

Eggsy is nearly four and a half, in exactly one year Harry would be recruiting his Da and his mother was squishing his cheek and combing his hair down for a play date with Eliot Bradshaw.

“My baby boy made his first friend.” She cooed and grabbed both his cheeks and tugged. “Stop making that face, you’re more moody than a teenager.”

A teenager. As if he wasn’t humiliated enough.

When he met Eliot in his original timeline, the man had looked like a scarecrow, all skin and bones and untidy hair and that maniacal glint in his eyes but he had also been so sad. He had quipped and bantered like Valentine but there was always something about him, the way he kept on flinching when Eggsy approached that made him feel very sorry for the man.

In another life they might have been friends. Eggsy remembered thinking that when he searched through the warehouse where Eliot had housed the machine once he knocked the other man out. He remembered that even though Eliot had been doing something so essentially selfish that he would end up destroying London for it, the reason they had even found out his hiding spot was because he had taken to feeding a few strays in the area and he’d bought them proper pet food.

He had been a good man warped by others and Eggsy had just saved him.

The second Eliot had said his name he’d expected the loop to form, expected to be shoved into the future and then snapped back into the past. That what Merlin had warned would happen, living life in a limbo suspended in between those two vital moments but that hadn’t happened.

So Eggsy was left, once again, to wait.

While on a play date.

Eliot- the toddler, was a chubby boy with his hair cut close to his head and the glint to his eyes was tempered by a sort of good-naturedness. He smiled shy when Eggsy and his Mum came in and then pulled him to his room when their mothers began chatting.

They sat there in silence for a good twenty minutes just awkwardly twiddling their thumbs. Eggsy was just about to do something, _anything_ , when Eliot spoke up.

“You’re smart aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Like me. You’re smart.”

Eggsy knew that Eliot was intelligent, there was a reason why he’d been taken but he didn’t know that that intelligence had extended to people as well

“I’m not that smart.” And then Eggsy thinks, maybe he can get some answers anyway. “You’re supposed to be really smart aren’t you?”

Eliot flushes but shrugs. “I like physics.” His voice is dreamy and Eggsy thinks he doesn’t just like physics, he _loves_ it. Eggsy loved being a Kingsman agent like that. He misses it.

“Teach me.” Eggsy finally says and Eliot looks at him surprised and frowns looking very upset.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Teach me. I want to know. I need to know.” And who better to learn from than the man who was capable of making that machine in the first place.

Eggsy doesn’t know what Eliot sees in him but whatever he saw it was enough to convince him and Eliot nods.

* * *

 

“You can read?!” Jamal says with wide eyes and Eggsy blinks.

He’s been trying so hard to not change his timeline that he ended up changing things anyway and he wasn’t just referring to Eliot. He remembered there being pictures of Jamal and him as snotty little kids— literally, there was one photo in which he was blowing a snot bubble— but here he had forgotten about that.

Eggsy still couldn’t handle being around the others his age especially not with his Da’s enlistment in Kingsman hanging over his head and it meant that he had no friends other than Eliot here. He hadn’t knocked over Jamal’s bourbon biscuit and made him cry, he never gave him his bubble gum in apology and they never became friends.

His best friend and he never even talked to him. The fuck was wrong with him?

“I can but—” Eggsy leans in close. “But you can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret.”

Jamal’s wide eyes grow even bigger at the prospect of a secret.

“Why?”

“Because if they find out they might try to take me away.” Eggsy says as gravely as possible and judging by how Jamal’s falling over with his vigorous nodding, the message has been received.

“Do you think—” Jamal frowns and bites his lip. “Could you teach me?”

“Come on bruv, we’ll start with the stories Ms Braverman teaches us and then—“

“And then?”

“Then we learn to read swears!”

Jamal’s little face breaks into the biggest smile Eggsy’s ever seen.

“Aces!”

* * *

 

It doesn’t take long before Eggsy, Eliot and Jamal all have play dates together. Eliot and Jamal were both standoffish with each other for a while before they realised they could just share Eggsy. And then they realised they didn’t need Eggsy much at all, Eliot taught Jamal to read and gave Eggsy his books to read instead and they all got along like a quiet bookish little fire.

All the while Eggsy wondered how to breach the topic of _‘Your future self sent me back in time with all my memories and I’ve changed everything, will the world end or can I save all my precious people before they die’_ with Eliot.

In the end all it took was one offhand remark by Jamal.

“—Mum keeps talking about some Doctor Who movie.”

“Doctor Who?” Eggsy interrupts and Jamal pouts.

“It’s a TV show about this Time Lord with this time travel machine.” Eliot explains and Eggsy doesn’t tell him that even though the show was suspended the year before he was born in the future it was going to be the blow up like crazy.

“Time travel? Do you think that’s possible?”Eggsy asks even though he knows the answer and Eliot shrugs.

“Bit pointless if you ask me. I mean you can’t change anything without creating a paradox unless you create a completely different timeline and make an alternate universe but that—“

“What if you just sent someone’s memories back in time?”

Eliot jolts and looks at him carefully. “What?”

“Imagine...imagine this time machine and something goes wrong and instead of sending someone back in time it just sends their memories back to them, so they grow up knowing what’s going to happen.”

Eliot and Jamal just stare at him like he’s crazy.

“So?”

“So what if he changes the timeline and screws it up?”

Eliot shrugs. “It wouldn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just memories they’re not exactly corporeal.”

“So?”

“Look I remember being chased by a giant cat for hours. It was a nightmare and not real but I remember it. Things don’t have to be real to remember it.”

“B-But the time-space continuum, how cou—”

Eliot sighs. “It’s like a floppy disk.”

“The hell?”

“You said a bad word.” Jamal chided.

“I can save files on a floppy disk and then when I take it out I can change those files all I want but the ones on the floppy are still the original files.”

“So you’re saying that—“

“ _Hypothetically_ -” Eliot looks at Eggsy with a weird look in his eye. “If you were sent back in time to your body with your memories, you could use them to change things around without creating a time loop.”

Oh. That changed everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late update.


	4. Chapter 4

So there Eggsy was, with this information that he thought he’d spend his whole life looking for. He could change things, change the world.

Only...what should he change? And what if things ended up becoming worse?

If he saved Da then he’d probably become the new Lancelot. What if he died on some other mission, wouldn’t his Mum be just as broken hearted then? What if his Da failed his mission and spiralled off into a guilt fuelled rage, turning into an alcoholic like Gawain had? What if all the secrets he’d have to keep from Mum ended up tearing them apart and they separated? What if Eggsy called in an anonymous tip about the drug trafficking ring that was going to set up shop and fuck up this neighbourhood in a couple of years only for something even worse to come along? What if he accidentally placed a stone somewhere that tripped someone and they died?

Alright, so the last one wasn’t that probable, possible, sure but not probable, but the point stood. That Ripple Effect thing that Merlin had drilled into his brain would end up changing things and then all his knowledge of the future would be useless because the future would be different.

So what should he change? Stop his Da from ever even considering becoming a Kingsman or just plain save his life and let things unfold then?

Whatever it was, he had to decide fast. No matter how much he wanted it to be different he was still, after all, barely five years old. No one would take anything he said seriously and the ones that would were the same type of dangerous that had attempted to kidnap Eliot. So he needed to decide and begin planning because whatever he decided to change would be difficult.

 

* * *

 

They were on the playground, Eggsy on the monkey bars while Eliot sat on the ground underneath rattling off the equations for all his movements when Eggsy began his routine. The gymnast/free runner/secret agent in him was restless, especially since his energy in this young state felt infinite. Eggsy hooked his legs on one of the bars and hung upside down and Eliot waited. This was the part where Eggsy asked his strange questions.

“If you could change the future, what would you change?” Eggsy asked him and got the same contemplating look Eliot had been giving him all week, ever since they’d first discussed the time travel theory.

“Does it need to be changed?” Eliot said carefully.

“It already has changed. Hypothetically.”

“Hmm,” Eliot shrugged and went back to writing equations in the air. “I’m okay with the projected trajectory of my life.”

“Really? So you’ve imagined it?”

Eliot snorted. “No I haven’t imagined it.” His fingers moved fast. It was one of the things Eggsy envied about him, he himself hadn’t quite managed that fine a motor control of his fingers yet. But what did he mean when he said he hadn’t imagined it? “I’ve calculated it.”

“Why didn’t I see that coming?” Eggsy said sarcastically, before swinging himself back and forth.

“Because people are predictable down to the very—ARGH!” Eliot shrieked as Eggsy flipped off the bar and landed firmly on his feet.

“I thought people were predictable.”

Eliot glared. “Sane people are predictable.”

“That explains all my friends.”

“You have two friends.” Eliot sneered and Eggsy realised that here, all his friends were gone. No Merlin, he might never even meet Roxy. Hell, maybe Roxy would never be chosen as a candidate, after all if he could manage it he was going to keep Lancelot i.e. his Da, alive. He’d have to make sure that Charlie never got even close to becoming a Kingsman, that was for sure.

And it seemed he had already made his decision. The second he had thought of his Da as Lancelot it had made sense, it fit. So it was decided then, he was going to make sure his Da never had to throw himself on that grenade.

Now all that was left to do was figure out how to do all that from another country in a six year old’s body.

Fucking wonderful.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the very late update but I was very, very sick for about a month and then there were Weddings. So. Many. Weddings. *Shudders*


	5. Chapter 5

Eggsy had lived for thirty six years on his sixth birthday. On that day he had friends who were attending, Eliot who gave him a universal remote that he’d built himself—how smart was that kid?—and Jamal who brought the cake that he’d made with his mum. The remote was rendered unusable—but not useless—when it worked on every electrical thing in estate and changed channels for twenty seven people only fourteen of whom complained aggressively for missing out on the Liverpool-Arsenal match and the cake had a weird powdery texture and an acidic taste that was just plain wrong.

Best. Birthday. Ever. Even better than when Merlin got him a custom pair of sneakers with jets in them.

He still had to come up with a good plan to change things but he _could_. He was going to save his Da, it was just a matter of how.

Part of him, the part that knew how his Mum had reacted back when he was a Kingsman, when he’d come back with bruises and no explanations for them, did want to keep Da from ever impressing Harry at all but Lee Unwin had died for Kingsman even before he’d been one, and after six years of field missions for Kingsman Eggsy knew exactly why. A life without Merlin, Roxy, Kay, Bedivere and Percival was the worst. Even now Eggsy was still getting used to their absence, still popped his bubble gum and thought of how annoyed Kay would be at that, still absently thought ‘Roxy’ll have a laugh at this’ when something funny happened.

So it had to be something else but a six year old hitching a ride to the middle east to prevent his Da from throwing himself on a grenade would raise eyebrows, Eggsy thought. He had no resources, no contacts, nothing. He didn’t even have a PC for fuck’s sake, Google doesn’t even _exist_. So what was he to do to change things anyway?

Only, things change-- or well, Eggsy changes them-- in unexpected ways. His Mum wants to buy his Da a present see, for his first day at his new job on the police force and they take the bus out to Central London and walk around, Eggsy’s hand held in hers tightly. It goes from being a shopping trip to a day out just the two of them and it is possibly the best day ever. They walk around everywhere, go to the National Gallery and whisper funny things about the paintings to one another and giggle as quietly as they can, Michelle finds a little shop somewhere that sells fake moustaches and picks up three identical ones (‘For a family portrait’, she says gravely and nods) and it is absolutely ace.

“Where should we go next?” She asks him and Eggsy looks around and sees that they’re actually only a street away from the shop and his heart races.

“There!” He points enthusiastically and drags his Mum behind him. She’s confused, there’s nothing there really, certainly nothing that would interest a six year old but she shakes her head and follows anyway and within minutes Eggsy finds himself reading those familiar letters, the K in the circle, the morning suit in the window that he knows Harry had three copies of and sighs.

“You like suits, baby?” Mum coos at him and looks at the store front carefully. “You think Da would like a tie?”

He nods furiously because if it gets her to go in, if it gets him inside the shop...

It does.

The shop looks exactly the same. Andrew at the reception has less grey in his hair, the cameras aren’t quite the microscopically small ones of his time but the rest was the same. His Mum gravitates towards the ties and Eggsy goes to that one mannequin with the military costume on it and stares. Andrew had always teased him for his fascination with it, called him a toddler which now struck Eggsy as being incredibly ironic.

He walks around slowly, hands touching with reverence and it is hard for him to let go of it all, can only bear to walk if his fingers graze the walls.

“What do you think of this baby?” She says.

“That’s an Ascot, not a tie.” Eggsy dismisses the wide dove grey silk without another thought, had spent too much time learning all of this to unlearn it now and so misses the thoughtful look she shoots him. He picks up a pale blue silk tie with slanting stripes of silver running through it, the lines so fine it looked more like a sheen and holds it up for his Mum’s approval. He knows the one suit his Da has—charcoal grey and just a tad ill fitting around the shoulder—would work with it.

“Good choice,” Mum says brightly and runs her fingers over it and her eyes soften. “It’ll bring out his eyes.” She drops a kiss on his hair and they go back to the counter.

The transaction doesn’t take long even though Eggsy wishes it would. He’s still in a bit of a daze, unwilling to leave the place that had become a second home, knowing that he was so close he just had to override the security system for the elevator and he’d find himself in that secret station underneath, could almost see Roxy coming down the stairs there to tell him in exact words how she would kill him.

Lulled into a false sense of security, Eggsy doesn’t notice where he was going. He bumps into someone’s legs and looks up to see Merlin pushing up his glasses.

“Best watch where you’re going lad.” He says, good ol writing pad in hand, making notes on it with a deft hand.

“Eggsy, love come on.” His mother says and he sees she’s at the door and rushes to her.

“See you later Merlin.” He throws over his shoulder absently and steps out of the shop with a heavy heart. It is the most content Eggsy’s been in years.

 

* * *

 

Guinevere was here.

She was at his school, helping out at the library, he would know that short Mia Farrow-style blonde hair and the robin’s egg blue eye-shadow anywhere. She was much younger than when he’d last seen her of course, in fact if he remembered correctly this was right before she had been transferred from her job as Arthur’s PA to become the Lancelot handler. She wouldn’t be called Guinevere until next year in fact.

And here she was, at Eggsy’s school. He would have considered it a coincidence if he didn’t know for a fact that she wasn’t too fond of children. She might not have hated them but she certainly didn’t care for them either, they were non-entities to her. She even maintained that she had come out of the womb as a perfectly mature well-mannered adult, much to everyone's amusement. So Guinevere wouldn’t possibly be there except for Kingsman business.

Might have been there for Eliot of course, he was the kind of genius that Kingsman might like to keep their eye on, Eggsy knew Merlin had a fair few former grey-hat hackers on his staff and with Eliot no longer under the thumbs of those thugs who’d kidnapped him in the previous time line, he was just the type to get Merlin’s attention.

Only it was a bit too much of a coincidence that he should find a Kingsman employee at his school right after the weekend he had gone to the shop. No, she was here for Eggsy which was fucking brilliant. He didn’t want to change things too much of course but he needed to change them and having an in with Kingsman now would be great because as a child he couldn’t do much.

So she was here for him, only why? He calmed himself down and closed his eyes, mind going over everything that had happened at the shop. What could have given him away?

And then he remembered flying out the door while throwing some words at Merlin, Merlin who he had addressed by the code name. No wonder they were looking into him.

He had them on a hook, now all he needed to do was reel them in. Eggsy wondered how he should do that before settling on the perfect plan of action.

He went to the library and made sure to catch Guinevere’s eye as she helped Ms Smithe stack and sort books. He knew just where to find the book he was looking for and picked it out of the shelves, making a show of it. There was a plush red chair in a corner where he always sat and read and he did just that, cracking the book open and waited. It wasn’t long before Guinevere was looming above him and tried to tamp down on the smirk blooming on his face but judging by the look on her face wasn’t quite successful.

“Interesting choice in books.” Guinevere says casually but she pushes her glasses up her nose, very conveniently touching the little pressure sensitive side and he knows that Merlin's seeing him through her ‘eyes’. He closes the book making sure the cover is very visible and smiles up at her.

“Yeah, 'The Sword in the Stone’ is a good ‘un. You read it?” The irreverence in his tone, something kids didn’t really have —it is more of a teenage or an adult thing really— has her narrowing her eyes down at him but the message is received, that much is certain. His hand taps on the hardback cover and her eyes go wide when the taps are understood for the message in Morse code they really are.

‘ _Hello, Merlin. Care for a chat?’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late update, I know but I was trying very hard to write longer chapters because it is something I'm struggling with and as you can see from this chapter....it has not worked out. I don't know what it is but if I go to write long chapters I get distracted and usually end up starting other stories instead, it's quite frustrating.


	6. Chapter 6

It wasn’t quite fair to say that Eggsy fell in love with Harry in the short amount of time he’d known him. It was a crush, that was for certain, because Eggsy knew well and good that Harry had had to _fight_ to get him into that program, that he was trying to make amends, not just for what Eggsy’s life had turned into without his father there, but also for not saving his Da in the first place.

He was trying. Harry didn’t have to but he was _still_ trying.

It meant something to Eggsy back then, when he’d lost hope for any future for himself, when he was that close to being locked up in jail.

But that wasn’t why he adored the man. That had come later, much later. When he took on the moniker of Galahad, he went through all the missions that the Galahad before him had gone on and it was the man he saw in those that he had grown to adore. Because Harry was certainly the _best_ Kingsman agent in a long time but more importantly, he was _good_ . The other agents they had become jaded to such an extent, the fact that Harry even _felt_ guilt, that he tried to resolve it, it astounded Eggsy. Especially since his career as a Kingsman agent had in many ways turned him cold as well.

Eggsy knew ‘Harry Hart’ and he knew ‘Harry Hart, codename:Galahad’ as well. And that was why he didn’t want to go to him with all of this.

If Harry found him now and Eggsy told him what he knew, Harry would believe it. He would try to help Eggsy, no doubt but the thing is, he wouldn’t be very _good_ at it. He was a very good Kingsman agent and Kingsman agents just didn’t work well in teams.

It was one of those things about Kingsman agents that had changed only when Roxy and Eggsy had been promoted together. They had a rapport built up from training together that the rest simply didn’t have. Oh sure, they could provide assistance when the missions went balls-up but working together from the start as a team? No.

Merlin though, Merlin he knew. Merlin, Eggsy had worked with and Merlin had the technical know-how that meant that he would actually understand all the time bending shit that Eggsy had done.

It takes Merlin longer than Eggsy expects to finally meet him in person. And when he’s sitting across from the bald man in the nurse’s office he says so.

Merlin for his part rolls his eyes.

“Oddly enough getting some alone time with a six year old when you’re a grown man is difficult.”

Eggsy smirks in acceptance. Merlin is here meeting everyone in school today, as a counsellor. Eliot’s kidnapping is used as an excuse to give the students a good one on one talk about what to do when dealing with strangers and to see if any of them had potentially bad homes that they needed to be taken away from. Eggsy had excused himself to the loo to laugh at the thought of Merlin sitting down to talk to a deluge of kindergartners, just to have a talk with him.

“Now then, you said you wanted to have a bit of a chat?” Merlin steepled his fingers together like that villain from the comics he hid in the Control center.

“In private, yes.”

“Well, then?” Merlin waited expectantly. As if his glasses weren’t broadcasting to someone else, as if Chester King couldn’t override him. Eggsy rolled his eyes and tapped his finger against the edge of his eye and grinned as Merlin’s eye twitched.

But he didn’t switch it off and the grin dropped from Eggsy’s face quickly.

“Pelham,” This time the twitch was much more pronounced as Eggsy dropped Merlin’s real name, something he had found out the time he had ~~broken into~~ dropped in unannounced at his house on Christmas and met his lovely and very chatty father. “I’d like your help but not like this.”

It took a while as Merlin thought it over carefully but eventually the glasses were switched off and the multitude of bugs and what have you were switched off as well and Eggsy took a deep breath.

“On November 26th 2021, a man who wanted to desperately change his future decided to travel back in time and change it. I was the Kingsman agent sent to stop him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see. Anyway, I quite lost my muse for this story but I got very excited because I'm going to watch Kingsman 2 tomorrow and manage to wrangle this thing out of myself.


	7. Chapter 7

Merlin doesn’t do surprise. Well, to be accurate, Merlin cannot possibly _afford_ to do surprise.

It is his job to anticipate any and every thing that might possibly happen and then think about the things that are impossible as well. Preparation and information, those are his weapons. The agents use guns, umbrellas, shock rings and lighter grenades, Merlin uses his notepad.

Merlin being blindsided is a worst case scenario.

Which is why when the child talks of time travel and he is _surprised_ , Merlin begins to think over emergency protocol. He thinks of the winery, thinks of all the safe houses, thinks of the codes for all the missile systems and only once he is sure that he is prepared for it all he looks, _truly_ looks at the boy sat in front of him.

Gary Unwin.

All the information Merlin collected on him was on the notepad in front of him. Gary Unwin, age 6, regarded as a genius but not treated as one because it didn’t manifest in the form of any social anxiety. Sounded the alarm that led to another genius child, Eliot Bradshaw, being rescued, was very dexterous for his age and seemed to know about Kingsman.

This was not what Merlin had in mind.

He remembered Lee Unwin, the bright constable who had ended up bearing witness to one of Galahad’s missions. He had been vital to Galahad’s mission, being one of the reasons why Harry had made it out alive. He had been curious but smart enough to not ask questions and Merlin had thought that that instance might have prompted a bit of investigation on his part that young Gary had found. Harry had asked Merlin to keep an eye on young Lee and Merlin had done so, never expecting that it was the toddling child of the man he’d have to watch out for.

“Time travel? Really?” He asked, sceptical. “If you’ve changed the future it could create a paradox and-”

“Yeah, I know you briefed me on that topic but I have been reliably informed that since memories are non corporeal and they are the ones that appear to have travelled rather than mass and matter being sent back in time, the paradox situation doesn’t hold true.”

The young boy went on to use an analogy of floppy disks to explain but while Merlin understood the concept, he still couldn’t wrap his head around the amount of power this tiny child held.

Knowledge is power, Gary Unwin had it in spades.

But that thought stalled when Merlin realised that he had refused to let this information into the hands of anyone but him specifically. That he had only said this once he knew that this information would exist only in Merlin’s head.

If he wanted to really use his knowledge he would have let Merlin record him, so that the entirety of Kingsman’s considerable resources were at his disposal. But he didn’t, this despite the fact that he had clearly been an agent himself, that he held at least a modicum of trust in the organisation.

Why?

“Why tell me to switch off my glasses for this? IF you’re an agent you know the codes to use to make us believe you.”

The boy pursed his lips and tilted his neck in such an adult manner that the last vestiges of doubt Merlin still held fled. “There were events at the time when I was still a trainee that revealed a very high ranking agent to be colluding with a megalomaniac in a plot to kill a lot of innocent folk. While the plot itself was stopped and happens many years into the future, his association with the man went back decades.”

“And who might this high ranking official be?”

There were some agents Merlin knew beyond a shadow of a doubt wouldn’t be named, wouldn’t be the traitor. But that only scared him because, of the high ranks there were only two he thought remotely capable of this.

“Chester King.” He said and Merlin closed his eyes for the briefest of moment.

Chester was...well he wasn’t quite the legendary agent Harry was but he was the best at hard decisions and keeping a cool head. It was what made him a great Arthur.

It was easy for Merlin to see how those very qualities could be twisted up to create a veritable monster with little to no conscience.

_Shit_

“How bad was it?” He asked and Gary swallowed. Merlin would have to ask him what his handle was. Lancelot, he knew, was getting up there in age and looking to retire to spend more time with his family but that was going to happen soon, who knew what would change in the next twenty years.

“We stopped it fairly early, only ten minutes or so in.”

“How bad was it?”

“Fifty million or so.”

“ _Fuck me_ ”Merlin said and immediately regretted swearing in front of a child, even if the person riding the body was much older.

“It was a worldwide event and...we lost a few agents.”

Lost a few agents he said. Must have been more than three then. So four or more agents lost, out of ten. And fifty fucking million worldwide.

He could see why Gary wanted to change the future.

“When did this happen?”

“June 20 2014.”

That was a seven year gap between this apocalyptic event and the time travel which meant- “Those are two entirely separate events.”

Gary looked surprised, “Well, yeah.”

Merlin sank back into the chair, his head spinning.

Kingsman missions were usually about drug cartels,about corrupt governments, about preventing assassination and only on rare occasion stopping mad men who wanted to destroy and/or take over the world. Their superiority laid in their independence, not in their ability to deal with comic book villains.

And in less than a decade to have two such events happen? And judging by the Unwin boy’s calm, probably more?

Merlin rubbed his bald head.

_“Fuck me”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I didn’t like the movie at all. I’m sure there will be a ton of fix-it fics because there’s a _lot_ to fix and to be honest I was seriously disappointed by how predictable it was despite the fact that I had refrained from watching any trailers at all and came into the theatre only knowing that there would probably be some golden circle. I like a bit of foreshadowing as much as the next person but there’s foreshadowing and there’s ‘LOOK AT THIS, WE ARE GOING TO USE IT LATER, REMEMBER IT!!!’.  
>   
>  They could have really developed the Kingsman mythos, shown how the actual agent life is as opposed to trainee life, but they didn’t. They could have spent less time on Charlie Hesketh and spent it instead building up the actual villain.  
>   
> Also, Eggsy was all over the place in terms of character development. _Charlie_ made more sense than Eggsy. Tilde’s bits too, it was like a joke’s punch line that was being drawn out too long. Even the action sequences (other than the one at the end) were too contrived.  
>   
>  The only saving grace of the movie was that Harry Hart Lives. Colin Firth carried the film hard.  
>   
> So, this chapter is because I need me some Merlin.  
>   
> (Hope I haven’t spoiled the movie for any of you, I’m really, really sorry if I did.)  
> 


	8. Chapter 8

 

A part of Eggsy—a tiny little part—feels a bit sorry for Merlin. Pelham has only been Merlin for a brief four years now and he’s probably still adjusting. That small part grows bigger the longer Merlin stays quiet and he gives in to it, tries to console Merlin. And the only thing that could console Merlin was information.

“The world changes a lot to get to that point. Globalisation gets bigger, the tech was growing by leap and bounds. The most commonly available commercial phone by that time is a couple of cuts above the current Kingsman communication tech. The world felt smaller back then somehow even though there was a lot more in it.”

Eggsy lost himself to memory, remembering him and Roxy sitting in a fortified safe house waiting out a bombing outside, passing a flask between the two of them, talking about it. ‘It’s probably just nostalgia,’ She said and took a big swig from it before scrunching up her face. She never did like vodka.

But somehow he was reliving his life and it still felt bigger right now than it did before. Surely he should feel nostalgic for the good ole days when he was a grown up and allowed to drink?

But he isn’t.

“The R&D department at Kingsman stayed ahead of the curve but so do a few others who often ended up on the other side of us.” But Merlin has that blank look on him, the one Kay called his ‘Reboot mode’ and Eggsy can see his words haven’t helped out any. “You have time. Twenty years in fact. Until then things don’t really change much but this one event created a lot of chaos, a lot of political turmoil. It’s only after that that things really changed. You have _time_ , so use it, yeah? For now, let’s go through the motions, you do your best to verify my identity.”

And that shakes Merlin out of it. A task to focus on, that’s what he needs and that’s what Eggsy gives him.

 

* * *

 

It’s strange but the more closely Merlin scrutinises him, the more Gary relaxes. And it is the relaxation that lets slip the fact that he was most definitely not the usual type for a Kingsman agent even as he rattles off codes and other Kingsman information so that Merlin might verify it. He slouches, his legs sprawled wide, his very language changes and in a way that tells Merlin something about where the world will be soon enough. Some of the words he uses are ones that have only recently come into existence, not popularised enough for them to be colloquial for _anyone_ the way they are for him.

Whatever happy childhood he has now is going to change significantly in the future. Or well, perhaps it won’t, perhaps this is one of the many things that the boy will stop happening.

Merlin wants to chide the boy for changing things but he cannot.

_Fifty million people dead_ and that was with their _success_? What had he said, oh yes, they stopped it a bare ten minutes in. Barely ten minutes and _that_ was the body count.

Of fucking course he would want to change that. And he had said _global_. Merlin couldn’t think of anything that happened globally for ten minutes and caused such destruction.

_How?_ If it was missiles or some bombs causing that type of damage then how could anything they do in a matter of ten minutes have saved the world and still somehow killed so many? How could that possibly count as a victory?

It is in the middle of it all that his phone beeps. He’s switched the glasses off the recording mode and so they contact him through the phone. Now unworried about using it in front of the boy, Merlin gets the bulky Nokia out, opens it up to reveal the touch screen hidden within and inputs his password to access the urgent memo that had been sent out.

Lancelot had had a heart attack. He was fine now but would be convalescing under the tender care of his wife, children and grandchildren and his retirement was effective immediately.

The Lancelot trials were about to begin.

“Did you know about this?” He asks the boy, turning the screen so he can see it and the tiny little face turns grave.

“Of course I know about this. It is one of the very first things that I want to change.” Merlin rushed through all the possibilities in his head. He couldn’t quite think why this would be so important to the boy unless the Lancelot they chose was a traitor as well. Perhaps he was in Chester’s pocket? Was this the start of the corruption? Unaware of all the things rushing through Merlin’s head the boy continued, “It’s one of the first brushes I had with Kingsman, I know exactly what happens and you get to verify my time travel claims.”

“What do you want to change?” Merlin asks with growing trepidation.

“In a week or so Harry,” And Merlin files that away carefully in his mind, the reverent way he says Harry’s name, the fact that he calls him by that and not Galahad as he should, “he proposes Lee Unwin as his candidate.”

Of course he does, that’s just the kind of thing Harry would do, break with years of tradition to put forth his Kingsman candidate, one who didn’t have a trust fund and connections to bring to the table, one who only had a background as a policeman to become a spy.

“After passing all the tests, Da and another candidate make it to the stage where they are taken as support on missions. It was in the middle east and all four of you were there when interrogating one of the men and he has a grenade hidden on him. Just before it goes off and kills you all, Da takes him out but dies in the process. And I’d really like to stop that from happening.”

_Shit_ , a candidate dying on their watch, even worse, a candidate dying on their watch who was probably the one person that had no people in high places to make demands on his behalf.

Merlin can see how this would change Gary’s life forever and why he’d want to change it.

“We’re not losing a candidate on my watch.” Merlin growls out but is still struck hard by the fact that it did happen on his watch, in another world this boy had lost his father on his watch and it had taken time travel for him to be able to fix his mistake.

But Gary waves his hand, almost flippant. “There’s still time, about five months or so. Take your time, make your plans. If you get sloppy I’ll have to hitch a ride to the middle east and that’ll raise some eyebrows.” Merlin’s sceptical look is countered with a grin that is too shark like considering the boy is missing teeth, “I may look six but I _am_ a Kingsman agent , bruv.”

True.

Merlin runs through all the calculations, and makes a temporary plan.

He can hide a Kingsman communicator, one that has the same level of security on it that Arthur’s does in a toy perhaps. Make an observation that Gary was smart, he could do with a toy more stimulating and direct his mother the right way. And the agents were given a week to find their candidates so by then he could at least confirm Gary’s story by seeing if Lee Unwin was Harry’s proposal.

Meanwhile he could start on investigating Chester’s work.

After all, like the boy said, he had time.

 

* * *

 

Four days later Merlin watches the feed through Galahad’s glasses as he leans on the wall outside Holborn police station. Lee Unwin comes out in his plain clothes and Harry stands up straight jerking the umbrella he’d been leaning on into his hand.

“Lee Unwin, mind if we have a chat?” He says and Merlin sends a message to the boy.

 

> _Galahad made contact with LU. Seems your story checks out Gary._

The reply comes a few hours later at a time that Merlin assumed was his play hour.

 

> **_Call me Eggsy._ **

 


	9. Chapter 9

“It’s this training program,” Lee Unwin tells Michelle and feels a twinge at lying to her. For the next six months he’s going to be a candidate for a Kingsman agent, a potential Knight of the Round table, and it means no contact with the outside world.

Michelle and Eggsy included.

_ Nothing _ in the entire world could be harder than that. No injuries or failure could compare to knowing that he was going to miss out on his little boy growing up, even if he should be done by the time of Eggsy’s seventh birthday. By then he’d either have failed or he’d be Lancelot.

But he needed to do this.

Lee had seen how Harry Hart had dismantled a human trafficking ring without leaving a trace. Had seen how he fought like a bloody beast, graceful but predatory in a way he hadn’t seen before.

He needed to do this because he could see how the tides were turning, how the peaceful estate they were living in would slowly change into something ghastly, could see power hungry men circling like vultures. 

And he couldn’t let that happen. The idea of the little world they had built turning to shit drove him mad. He could see it so clearly in his mind, the sound of children playing turning into the sounds of glass bottled breaking as fights broke out, Mr Bannerjee’s shop where the teens stopped for a cornetto being broken into constantly on dares and that was just the tip of the iceberg. He wanted things to stay the way they were and for that he would have to change himself. Make himself into a weapon the way Harry Hart was.

But it was still hard to leave them behind even if only for a while.

 

* * *

 

“Poodles are gun dogs, easy to train,” Eggsy says with bright eyes, “Did you know that?” 

“Is that your way of asking for a puppy?”

The little shoulders go up and down, “I like pugs.”

Children were just so strange. The way their minds went from one thing to the other. And his little genius Eggsy who wanted to be an Olympic gymnast. Lee didn’t know that was an ambition children could have.

“Take care of your mother for me, alright?”

And his little Eggsy looks at him gravely, “With courage and strength.”

Seeing Michelle look amused as she listened to the them, Lee leans closer to Eggsy, lowering his voice to a stage whisper, “And if any rotters come sniffing around your mum while your da’s not here-”

“Tear them into pieces,” Eggsy says with a cold bloodthirsty look that reminds Lee of something, he just couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Or just drive them away.”

Eggsy shakes his head in the negative, “It won’t work, she’s too pretty.”

And Michelle laughs. Lee commits the sound to memory, gathers up his boy in one arms and his wife in the other. 

Because  _ this _ , this happiness is exactly what he wants to protect. This laughter is the reason to go to war.

* * *

 

And when he stands in front of Harry who’s leading him into Kingsman headquarters through a maze, smirking at the look of awe that is inevitably on Lee’s face as he looks out the glass and sees a hangar full of cars, planes and more, he realises that Eggsy’s ruthless look as he talked of tearing them apart was a lot like Harry Hart’s shark smile.

 

* * *

 

Lee watches a lot of children’s tv. Eggsy isn’t that interested in it but on Saturday mornings they watch cartoons together, like Sesame Street. So as he sits there after the introductions are done, Lee drifts off to sleep to a song playing in his head.

‘One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belong’

And riff raff like him most certainly didn’t belong in this old boy’s club.

They sneer when he talks of his family but the sneers die off when his smile stays on. Lee is not ashamed or unhappy because of his family. In the end, the silence gets to them the same as it gets to him. Writing their name on the body bags tossed their way by the bald man, Merlin, gets to them the way it gets to him. The sneering talk turns genuine soon enough. They’re all from military backgrounds and it is easier than it should be to fall back into a unit mentality, to think as a team.

By the time they nod off they have at least enough camaraderie to say goodnight to one another.

And then they wake to the sensation of choking on water. 

James and Hugh, both struggle with the rising levels and as Lee and Richard help the two, the rest make loo snorkels for them to breathe out of, sharing the four tubes between one another. Lee sees the mirror, mounted  _ into  _ the wall, not just on it and thinks of the interrogations he’s looked in on, observing them from the booth behind. He tells the boys of his idea with his hands and Colin, the big, burly fellow breaks it with a couple of hard blows.

They tumble out into the observation booth with its grill and drainage system under it, gasping and laughing with relief. Merlin marks something on the pad he holds and turns to them with a look that is almost a smile. 

“Good job everyone, you remembered Kingsman’s number one rule, teamwork. Lee, Richard, good on you for noticing James and Hugh’s struggles. James, Hugh, well done accepting help. A Kingsman agent is not invincible and must know to accept help when needed. Colin, good job breaking the mirror,  Mark, Basil, John quick thinking with the loo snorkels. Get a pipe around the u bend of a toilet, get an unlimited supply of air. It appears you’ve all passed the test.” He says and walks off.

 

* * *

 

It is his Mum’s first proper night without Da and Eggsy can feel her nervousness. She paces the house a couple of times, stopping only to run her hand through his hair and look at her bed, forlorn. As it nears his bedtime, Eggsy goes to her with his books and tells her he misses Da, and could she read the book please?

He curls up next to her in the place where his Da would sleep otherwise and asks her to read the book again and again until he hears the first yawn. Then it is his turn to read it with her and when she finally falls asleep he turns off the bedside lamp, draws her blankets over her and tucks her in the best he can with his little hands and kisses her goodnight before going to his room to sleep himself.

He wakes to the sound of the ‘toy’ Merlin tricked out for him beeping and looks at the message contained within.

_ ‘LU passed test with flying colours, so did the rest. Good batch this time.’ _

And Eggsy smiles. Because even in that good batch of candidates so good that they end up becoming part of Kingsman anyway, Colin being the Percival of his time, Basil the next Kay while Mark and John join the R&D department and Richard the head of the German outfit of Kingsman, even in the midst of all those greats, his Da is still extraordinary. 


End file.
